East Lynne eBook

Shouts, hisses, execrations, yells! The prisoners
were being brought forth, to be conveyed to Lynneborough.
A whole posse of constables was necessary to protect
them against the outbreak of the mob, which outbreak
was not directed against Otway Bethel, but against
Sir Francis Levison. Cowering like the guilty
culprit that he was, shivered he, hiding his white
face—­wondering whether it would be a repetition
of Justice Hare’s green pond, or tearing him
asunder piecemeal—­and cursing the earth
because it did not open and let him in!

CHAPTER XLI.

FIRM!

Miss Lucy was en penitence. She had been
guilty of some childish fault that day at Aunt Cornelia’s,
which, coming to the knowledge of Mrs. Carlyle, after
their return home the young lady was ordered to the
nursery for the rest of the day, and to be regaled
upon bread and water.

Barbara was in her pleasant dressing-room. There
was to be a dinner party at East Lynne that evening,
and she had just finished dressing. Very lovely
looked she in her dinner dress, with purple and scarlet
flowers in her bosom. She glanced at her watch
somewhat anxiously, for the gentlemen had not made
their appearance. Half-past six! And they
were to dine at seven.

Madame Vine tapped at the door. Her errand was
to beg grace for Lucy. She had been promised
half an hour in the drawing-room, when the ladies
entered it from the dessert-table, and was now in agony
of grief at the disappointment. Would Mrs. Carlyle
pardon her, and allow her to be dressed?

“You are too lenient to the child, madame,”
spoke Barbara. “I don’t think you
ever would punish her at all. But when she commits
faults, they must be corrected.”

“She is very sorry for her fault; she promises
not to be rude again. She is crying as if she
would cry her heart out.”

“Not for her ill-behavior, but because she’s
afraid of missing the drawing-room to-night,”
cried Barbara.

“Do, pray, restore her to favor,” pleaded
madame.

“I shall see. Just look, Madame Vine!
I broke this, a minute or two ago. Is it not
a pity?”

Barbara held in her hand a beautiful toilette ornament,
set in pure gold. One of the petals had come
off.

Madame Vine examined it. “I have some cement
upstairs that would join it,” she exclaimed.
“I could do it in two minutes. I bought
it in France.”

“Oh, I wish you would,” was Barbara’s
delighted response. “Do bring it here and
join it now. Shall I bribe you?” she added,
laughing. “You make this all right, and
then you shall bear back grace to Lucy—­for
I perceive that is what your heart is set upon.”

Madame Vine went, and returned with her cement.
Barbara watched her, as she took the pieces in her
hand, to see how the one must fit on to the other.

“This has been broken once, as Joyce tells me,”
Barbara said. “But it must have been imperceptibly
joined, for I have looked in vain for the damage.
Mr. Carlyle bought it for his first wife, when they
were in London, after their marriage. She broke
it subsequently here, at East Lynne. You will
never do it, Madame Vine, if your hand shakes like
that. What is the matter?”